Mozilla does not plan to return to iOS
If you are wondering who is to blame for the fact that the iPhone does not have Firefox, then the simple answer is Apple. At least, Mozilla Vice President Jay Sullivan said this at the SXSW conference and spoke about Apple’s policy on third-party browsers.
Apple is now forcing third-party browsers, such as Chrome, to use UIWebView to render web pages. In this case, the company itself in Safari uses the Nitro engine, which runs faster. So it is not at all surprising that Safari now occupies 55% of the market.
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You can also recall that Apple prohibits changing the default browser in iOS, and although the situation smacks of artificially restricting competition and subject to antitrust proceedings, Apple itself says that the whole thing is safe - by opening Nitro to third-party developers, the company will have to expose iOS to unnecessary risk . So while the engine is used only Safari, which Apple can manage and easily patch in case of security problems.
For Mozilla, the situation looks like a stalemate: the lack of Firefox on iOS means the loss of a large audience, the release of Firefox for iOS does not mean the release of the best browser for the platform, but simply the appearance of another browser on UIWebView.
While Mozilla does not plan to develop its product for iOS. But “competition is crucial for our survival,” said the creator of the Dolphin Browser during a press conference. So how many more browser authors will put up with the limitations of Apple is not clear.
Update from ivan4th : The problem with Nitro on the iOS platform is deeper than it seems. Apple policy does not allow the execution of recorded memory in third-party applications. Which means - past the whole JIT and many other useful things. In particular, due to the impossibility of using V8, it is not quite clear how Qt5 will work on iOS - the preview has already jumped, but without QML2.
Apple is now forcing third-party browsers, such as Chrome, to use UIWebView to render web pages. In this case, the company itself in Safari uses the Nitro engine, which runs faster. So it is not at all surprising that Safari now occupies 55% of the market.
')
You can also recall that Apple prohibits changing the default browser in iOS, and although the situation smacks of artificially restricting competition and subject to antitrust proceedings, Apple itself says that the whole thing is safe - by opening Nitro to third-party developers, the company will have to expose iOS to unnecessary risk . So while the engine is used only Safari, which Apple can manage and easily patch in case of security problems.
For Mozilla, the situation looks like a stalemate: the lack of Firefox on iOS means the loss of a large audience, the release of Firefox for iOS does not mean the release of the best browser for the platform, but simply the appearance of another browser on UIWebView.
While Mozilla does not plan to develop its product for iOS. But “competition is crucial for our survival,” said the creator of the Dolphin Browser during a press conference. So how many more browser authors will put up with the limitations of Apple is not clear.
Update from ivan4th : The problem with Nitro on the iOS platform is deeper than it seems. Apple policy does not allow the execution of recorded memory in third-party applications. Which means - past the whole JIT and many other useful things. In particular, due to the impossibility of using V8, it is not quite clear how Qt5 will work on iOS - the preview has already jumped, but without QML2.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/172235/
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